


Cafe con Leche and a Side of Awkward

by microphoneMessiah



Series: Baristastuck: Adventures in Coffee Cups [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, Humanstuck, M/M, baristastuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-08
Updated: 2012-04-08
Packaged: 2017-11-03 07:19:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/378769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/microphoneMessiah/pseuds/microphoneMessiah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Baristastuck because Gamzee can brew a mean Caffe Misto.</p><p>Or, Travis has a horrible day at school and a hot barista, puppies, and a warm beverage cheer him up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cafe con Leche and a Side of Awkward

It’s cold when you come in, a hash breath lapping at the sides of your unzipped coat before the door shuts it out. You’ve recently started coming to this cafe on chilly autumn days after your 2 o’clock psych class. In all honesty, you really don’t care for the class and the teacher is sort of horrible in all the worst ways. She picks on you the most, asks you intruding questions about your disorder; whatever really comes to what you assume to be the evil sponge that constitutes her mind. More often than once she’s made you consider crying or calling her every name in the book, but you don’t.

You don’t because that’s what she wants. You know it’s what she wants.

And now you’re frustrated and you really don’t want to think about psych, or school, or calling her an “evil, life-sucking, hateful cunt”. Nope. Done. You just—you just can’t.

You walk slowly up to line at the register, shrugging off your scratchy, tan coat; it’s always extra toasty in here. The line passes quickly as you admire the decor around the room: creative chandeliers made from old water bottles, tables shaped like tree bottoms, and best of all a little play area for customers’ puppies. You personally don’t have a dog but you’re friend, Tersa, has a seeing eye dog that she lets you play with. It’s a big German Shepard she calls Pyral and he is the nicest dog ever! In fact, he inspired you to actually consider majoring in veterinary science and medicine, so you kind of owe him too.

You make a note to try and make him some dog treats, regardless of how poorly they turned out last time. You may have been distracted by a quick roleplaying session with Aria, but you could have sworn you had, like, another 10 minutes or so before they would turn to little bone shaped fires! 

Yeah, not a good talk with your dorm’s ra. 

As you think of other past culinary failures, you finally make it to the front of the line without noticing.

“What can I get you, bro?” You glance towards the rough voice and oh—Oh, God. He’s, um, he’s kind of ridiculously hot.

“I, um, would like to, err.” No! No! No! Basic English is failing you right now, ugh! What was the point of having to sit through all these boring years of English just to have it fail you when you most need it. Talk, damn it. Tell him your order, right now!

“Me llamo, Travis.”

…Fuck. Why, what’s that? You want to dig a hole where no one will find you or your numerous failures? Why, brain, that sounds like a marvelous suggestion; let’s go do that!

But then, he’s laughing. And, like, not at you in the “haha what a weirdo” way that you’re used to, but in the “haha what a cute answer” kind of way that never happens to you. Ever. Maybe you can try this again?

“Can I, uh, get a grande Caffe Misto, extra hot?” Oh, yes. Words. Those are words in English and though you may have stuttered, you said words. 

“Sure thing, motherfu—Travis.” He has a sly grin on his face as he says your name and you want to melt. Just a big mushy puddle all over the faux grass floor.

You briefly ponder if the fake grass would absorb you or if you’d just be a mess sitting on top until the janitor came.

You briefly ponder when you became a thirteen year old girl.

Finding your seat at your favorite little spot in the back corner (just far back enough where things are a bit more secluded and less busy), you wait for your drink. A thought crosses your mind to take out that book you have to read for English—House of the Spirits or something— but you decide against it. English wasn’t there for you when you wanted to sweep the handsome barista off his feet, so to put it frankly, at this moment, you decide to say: fuck English.

With that decision in mind, you instead spend the wait playing with the paws of the adorable little cockerspaniel and toy poodle mix pup that stumbled over to your spot. It’s nose is soft and wet and it sneezes on you a few times, but you don’t mind. The puppy treats you like you’re the most precious thing in the world when you scratch a spot behind it’s ears, so you decide that makes up for whatever puppy boogers that may have landed on your shirt. You’re so caught up in belly rubbing your new pal that you don’t hear your name being called the first time.

Or the second time.

Or the seventh time.

When you do finally notice, it’s not because you finally heard your name. Nope, it’s because your view of furry belly is blocked by a pair of black skinny jeans and purple converse. You arrive at the conclusion that, yep, you can hazard a glance up.

You wish you hadn’t arrived at that conclusion. A detour or a delay probably would have sufficed. Anything would have been better than staring straight up into the face of who other than, and you’re questioning your belief in an all-loving God here, the hot barista guy. And you have dog sneeze residue on your probably already dirty shirt.

Benevolent your ass.

“I tried calling your name a bunch at the counter, but, man, you must’a zoned out and went to puppy land with this little bro ‘cause I couldn’t reach you at all.” He laughs to himself and a full second later you join in, laughing awkwardly. You keep laughing for another few seconds after he stops before shutting your mouth and attempting to “pray away the awkward”.

“Yeah. I just love rubbing bellies.” Nope, prayers went unanswered. Time to curl up and die.

“Is that so?” He asks and that sly grin is back. You have to bite your lip so you don’t say something stupid like, “I’d rub your belly if you’d like” or “That’s not the only thing I could rub”. Instead you settle for this:

“Ha, yeah. I love dogs. They’re just so friendly and, uh, loyal. Like, they’ll never let you down. And, um, they are good for snuggling at night. Which are qualities more people should have, I think. It would be a lot better for relationships and things.” Wow, okay, not great, but not horrible. And he’s nodding so maybe you didn’t totally mess this up.

“Definitely, motherfucker. You got one of those?” And even though he’s hovering over you and not making perfect eye contact, his stare is intense and you almost squirm.

“A dog?” He laughs again. Wow, he laughs a lot. It’s a good sign that he’s laughing, right? Right.

“Naw, a relationship.” Oh. Uh.

Oh.

“No, I don’t.” You reply quickly, probably too quickly, you think, because then you’re both sitting there in an awkward silence. You’re going to need a…what is it? A bit of luck? A stroke of God? No, a miracle. You are going to need a miracle to get this guy to even think of going out with you.

“So, wha—”

“I was just wonder—” 

You stand up, sheepishly rubbing the back of your head with a small smile playing on your lips. “You first.”

He grins back before fidgeting a bit in place. He looks at his hands before looking at you with that stare again. “I was just wondering, I’m Gavin, by the way, if you wanted to go see this band that’s playing in the Bosque Park tonight. I mean, I know it’s all of the sudden and shit, but there are some ducks there we could feed if you don’t like what’s playin’. Or, we don’t have to go to the park at all, bro. I know there’s an exhibit down by—” You’re not sure where you gained the new found courage from, maybe the dog snot mixed with your DNA to give you wolf strength or something, but you push your index finger against his lips to shush him.

“Gavin?” He nods his head, a ridiculous surprised expression still on his face. “I think it’d be totally awesome to go to the park with you.” And you can’t tell if he’s more excited from your acceptance or if you’re more excited because, oh God, you didn’t stutter. And you were suave. And he just asked you out. Your self-esteem is higher than it’s ever been; you didn’t even need Rufio to handle this for you.

“Cool.” He sets your coffee down on the table, and by some unreasonable stroke of continuous luck, it’s still steaming. “One venti Caffe Misto, extra hot.”

You glance down to see that he formed a heart with the cream on top and have to fight back the blush that threatens to burn up your face. “But I ordered this a size smaller; a grande cup.”

He winks at you. “I’ll let you enjoy this caffeinated beverage while I close up my counter and then we can take our silly asses over to that park to hear some sick rhymes get thrown down about some dudes’ Moms.” And with that he heads off back to his station leaving you alone in your spot.

You decide then that,

yes: 

Coffee really does make everything better.

**Author's Note:**

> I keep chickening out on the Caffe Misto (it's from Starbucks, btw. So, you can be brave and go for it!) because it's coffee and coffee makes me jittery. Like, this thing is half milk and half coffee, yet I'm still sure I will be a shakey mess if I drink it.
> 
> Que sera, sera. /sobs.


End file.
